1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of wireless communications and more particularly relates to block coded digital communication systems.
2. Related Art
Conventional block coded digital communication systems typically split a frame into known training symbols and known data symbols. Although the symbols are known, i.e., included in a predefined finite alphabet, the particular data symbols in any given frame are unknown to the receiver.
During the training portion of a frame, it is well known to run tracking loops based on an error signal generated from the training data. For example, a time tracking loop or phase locked loop may be employed. Alternatively, or in combination, a least mean square (“LMS”) equalizer updating procedure may also be used. These loops or procedures serve to provide critical information to the receiver of a wireless communication device.
In these conventional block coded digital communication systems, it is often necessary to continue adapting the loops during the data portion of the frame, for example to compensate for a fading signal or timing error. A common method of such continuous adaptation is to employ decision-directed (“DD”) adaptation. This scheme requires that the receiver estimate what symbols are received in the data stream. Typically, a slicer is employed to obtain tentative decisions for the transmitted data symbols and to determine the noise associated with the slicer decision. The final decisions for the transmitted data symbols are based on the decoder output.
A problem associated with this scheme is the delay that is inherent in channel decoding. Because the symbols are encoded, the efficiency of the process is either reduced by decoding the symbols or reduced by the higher error rate that is inherent with slicer decisions as opposed to decisions from the decoder output.
Furthermore, implementing a decision feedback equalizer (“DFE”) at the receiver to remove intersymbol interference (“ISI”) exacerbates this problem because the input to the feedback filter (“FBF”) comprises the higher error rate slicer decisions. Thus, when the sliced symbols that are put into the FBF are in error, which is more likely when they are encoded, then the DFE propagates the error and increases the likelihood of subsequent slicer errors and thereby diminishes performance. FIG. 1 is an example graph diagram illustrating conventional slicer errors when unmodified symbol estimates are used as slicer input.
Therefore, what is needed is a method for improving slicer input and the corresponding feedback filter contents in block coded communications to overcome these significant problems found in the conventional systems as described above.